Conversation v. Flirting

Okay, today we are going to explore my inability to make new friends without my current friends making fun of me . . .

Yesterday there was a couple at the bar (we went to the Hardluck . . . evidently our absence for two weeks made us lose our "regular" status, so now we have to keep up with that . . . so see you on Friday, you know where) and they were talking about sock monkeys. No prompting. And how could I give up that chance? They were talking about sock monkeys . . .

They were married. The wife was from Livonia and about my age. So I was warning them about getting addicted to expensive buttons (as I have a stash and somehow still buy more, I mean, does anyone really NEED $11.25 buttons? That's $23.oo dollars for eyes on a $3.00 sock) and we were just getting to selling on etsy when Princess and E2 called me back.

"Stop trying to pick up that couple . . . "

But I wasn't trying to "pick them up". I was just conversing pleasantly about sock monkeys.

They accuse me of this every time I talk to anyone . . . anywhere. And I don't know if it's my intensity or if I seem like I'm flirting (how does one flirt about sock monkeys?) or my body language or what. From my view, pleasant conversation with strangers about things I am interested in . . . seems like the way to make new friends, actually. How do other people do it? E2 even texted her boy about it and then showed me. "Emily is trying to pick up a couple at the end of the bar." (somehow to bother to text, concretes things)

So . . . am I just flirty all the time? And my current friends are immune? Or are Princess and E2 just giving me shit . . . all the time? Because it's starting to make me self-conscious. What about the people I talk to randomly at the grocery store? Or the book store? Or in my life in general? Am I flirting with everyone?

And if I am, shouldn't I be way more popular?

Pay it . . . well . . . backward

"Sorry to make your head explode . . . but I figured since you always do that to me, I'd pay it forward."
"Pay it forward? Aren't you supposed to be doing something positive when you "pay it forward"?"
"Yeah, well . . . I'm changing it up."
"You can't 'change it up' . . . what, I now have to make three other people's heads explode? (with the information I give them?) Well, fine. I'll 'pay it forward' to you soon and make your head explode."
"You do that all the time anyway . . . and that won't be paying it forward . . . "
"Okay, well, I'm paying the negativity backward then . . . we can just loop for a while."

Gumby's CD

I love that the yearbook kids are calling me on their cell phone's while the substitute teacher is watching. Just for that I've burned a CD for them . . . old person music torture for tonight. Put a picture of Gumby on it and everything - since they drag that poor Gumby doll all over the room and make him signs so he can taunt the journalism weasels.

Boy, I like the word taunt today.